


Fake

by rendezvous



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, HUGE SPOILERS, Other, Spoilers, T rating because they both say FUCK so much, akechi's mood swings, akeshu if you squint. i'm squinting, this is a walking spoiler and so are the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 01:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10709223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rendezvous/pseuds/rendezvous
Summary: Akechi came to LeBlanc for some coffee and curry, but only came back with food for thought.Massive P5 Spoilers, beware.





	Fake

**Author's Note:**

> AU in which Akechi survives Shido's Palace and is pestered by the Phantom Thieves to join them.

“Akira.” Sojiro cocked his head towards the OPEN sign on LeBlanc’s front door.

“Mhm.” As Sojiro buttoned up his coat and headed out, Akira drooped his copy of _The Gallant Rogue_ over Morgana’s back. “One sec. Be my bookmark.”

Akechi lifted the book from Morgana before the latter could protest, taking care to slip a finger over the page Akira had left off on before he folded over the front cover with his thumb – Akira _did_ say he needed a bookmark, after all. Akechi gingerly placed it on the countertop, next to that cartoonish-yellow telephone.

“Hey.” Akechi gave a start at Akira’s sudden appearance next to him – he could have sworn Akira had only stepped outside for a few seconds, but… Well, it should come as no surprise. Joker had always been the lightest on foot.

_Joker._

_Hm._

“Haaaaah, did I spook you into a coma or something?” Akira gave Akechi a playful shove, one just gentle enough not to knock that well-dressed elbow into that well-cooked curry. “You’ve been dead quiet all night. What gives?”

Before Akechi could formulate a response, Joker had already acknowledged it. “Yeah… That… That, like, vacant look in your eye. _Something_ must give.”

“Shut up.”

Akira froze in a mid-theatrical yawn, a confused, somewhat affronted expression replacing the sleepy one he’d had on moments prior. He’d been expecting Akechi to lash out at someone sooner or later, but not _this_ soon. “Huh? The hell is your problem?”

“Don’t act like you give a shit about me,” Akechi all but snarled under his breath, clattering his teacup to its saucer as harshly as he could without breaking it, “You’re more transparent than that Airsoft clerk.”

“Transparent?” This time it was Akira’s turn to jolt, with Morgana somehow having wriggled his way back into Akira’s schoolbag.

“I can _hear_ you,” Akechi hissed, slamming down the cup and saucer as hard as he could without _too_ much of a chance of breaking it. He shot Akira a pointed glare. “You haven’t said a word about Shido. Loki. Cognition. The gunshot. Nothing.”

Silence hung in the air for just a few seconds, but it seemed that was more than enough time for Akechi, who’d slammed a few bills on the countertop and was now retrieving his coat to take his leave. “Forget it. None of this will work.”

“What…? The fuck are you talking about?”

“The fuck am I _talking about?!_ ” Akechi all but shrieked, casually, as he’d almost forgotten his briefcase. “What _am_ I talking about? Huh. No, that’s right, there’s nothing to talk about.” _Ignore me and my feelings. Ignore this stupid fucking case. Ignore this –_

“I’m not trying to ignore you,” Akira said suddenly, and Akechi felt something white-hot drop in his throat – Joker was always something of a mind-reader. But now was not the time to be vulnerable.

“Just… Just calm down, okay? What is it?” Akira pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose as he looked Akechi in the eye – that same hollow, vacant stare. “Heh… Is it a job for the Phantom Thieves?”

_Fuck your comic relief._

Apparently that thought had meshed directly with the seething look on Akechi’s face, for Akira coughed, cleared his throat awkwardly. “I was, uh… I was kidding. Sorry.”

“No…” Akechi brought his thumb and forefinger to his chin, tone of voice shifting from irritably graveled to amicably smooth – that smooth, gentle voice he always played up on television – “No, wait… You’re right. Sure. Phantom Thieves. Steal my heart.”

Akira knew to save his jokes for next time.

“Steal my heart,” Akechi repeated, cadence jumping, spiking between anger and a raw sense of euphoria. “Steal my heart. I’m sick of this shit.”

Akira raised his eyebrows, but didn’t utter a word.

“I’m sick of it. I’m tired. I’m fake and everyone can see right through me.”

“What makes you say that?”

Akechi suppressed his urge to scream before meeting Akira’s gaze again and finding it to be sincere, not mocking, not patronizing. No shit-eating grin. Good. “Alright, well,” he started, assuming his ‘television act’ and speaking sweetly, “How about we start off with me playing nice only to shoot you in the fucking head?”

Morgana had taken his leave, Akira just noticed. “You didn’t, though. We stopped you.”

“I _KNOW_ YOU STOPPED ME. _Just…_ Please, quit… interrupting.” Akechi’s grip on his teacup looked unsettlingly tight. “Just the fact alone that I even _tried._ ”

Another heavy silence. An expectant look from Akechi prompted Akira to think of something to say that wasn’t irreverent or some dumb little play on words. “… I mean, well, yeah, that was… I wasn’t too excited about that.”

 _Fuck this._ Akechi shoved past Akira, heading for the door, clawing one hand down his face for being so stupid as to even _think_ of initiating this kind of dead-end conversation –

“Hey.” Akira grabbed hold of Akechi’s left sleeve.

The look Akechi gave him over his shoulder was absolutely vicious.

“Please don’t interrupt me, either.”

Akechi yanked his arm away, trying to find anywhere to look in LeBlanc that wasn’t directly into the face of the one person he almost could have been.

“I won’t mince words,” Akira said firmly.

“I’d prefer it as such,” replied Akechi through his teeth.

Akira took in a large breath, exhaling heavily, trying to summarize everything he wanted to say in his head fast enough to keep his friend from practically flying out the door. “… You thought you were using Shido, but Shido was using you all along. You’ve had a hard life. Your judgement was crappy since you wanted revenge on him so badly, so you made some stupid decisions.”

Silence.

“ _Really_ stupid decisions.”

A sharpened silence.

“Unforgiveable decisions,” Akira said finally, and stepped in front of the ticking time bomb that was an insulted Akechi to keep him from leaving once more. “But you know what? You’ll just have to live with that.”

By now, Akechi’s harsh, vacant stare was akin to an unnervingly dormant volcano.

“But you can also live with it knowing that part of it was forced on you. You’re _not_ an evil person,” he stressed. “Stop trying to demonize yourself. It won’t work.”

Akechi sneered. “ _What_ won’t?”

“You’re joining the Thieves, and that’s final. We all want you on board.”

It took all that detective had not to rip his own hair out. “Stop… Patronizing… Me.”

“Okay! Okay, how the hell is me saying ‘we still want you to join us because we like you as a person’ patronizing when I actually mean it this time?”

“ _This_ time?” Akechi rolled his eyes, scoffed. “Case in point. And don’t think you can lie to me. If I were Haru-san, I’d have already put a hit out on me by now.”

Akira’s brow furrowed. “Haru’s not that kind of person and you know it.”

“Then she’d do well to follow my example, now, wouldn’t she?” Akechi flashed his sweetest plastic smile possible before falling into that expressional vacancy yet again.

“Don’t say shit like that.” Akira kicked at the ground aimlessly, not really caring whether Sojiro would bitch him out for scuffing up the wood finish. “For the record, yeah, she won’t forgive you. She _can’t_ forgive you. Maybe she will someday, who knows. But she doesn’t hate you. She wants to understand you.”

Akechi craned his neck further away from Akira’s intense gaze.

“We _all_ want to understand you. Some of us can. Ryuji’s dad used to beat the shit out of him before he fucked off to who-knows-where. Talk to Yusuke about your mom. Ask Ann how many friends she had growing up. We might not _get_ it, man, but we can _sort_ of… get it.” Coherent sentences be damned. Akira was starting to wear thin.

Akechi noticed, of course, and shrugged in such a jerky, unnatural motion to make it painfully clear that he was still just as angry as he had been. “You shouldn’t want to.”

“Too bad. We do.”

The path to the front door was clear now, for Akira had planted himself at a nearby booth, glasses off, pinching the bridge of his nose, study notes strewn about the table.

_I suppose I can go now?_

Akira yawned again, out of the blue, sounding three times as tired as he had before. He gave a start as he checked the time on his phone. “Shit! It’s two in the morning!”

Akechi checked his own phone and groaned. Akira’s forehead hit the table.

“Just think about it,” came Joker’s muffled plea. “Please.”

“… Thank you for the food.” Obligation. Akechi gave one final brush to his shoulder – ugh, cat hair – before making a beeline for the door.

“Hey, one more thing.” Akira lazily lifted his head from his textbook. “Can you flip the sign for me?”

Akechi’s eyes narrowed. “Didn’t you just do that earlier?”

“I forgot.”

A quick glance at the door proved that Akira had indeed forgotten what was probably the only task Sojiro asked of him around there. “… Sure.”

“Thanks. ‘Night. Seeya tomorrow.”

“… Maybe. Goodnight.”

Akechi left, the crisp autumn winds that had slipped through his departure filling the café like spritzes of urban perfume.

He flipped the sign to CLOSED and made his way home.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I'm one of the only like, three or so people on earth who actually like Akechi? Poor guy's just... been through hell. I like to think Akira sees right through that; he can see past anybody's mask, as it were. I also like to think he can always see the best in people, and find it in his heart to at the very least sympathize with most anyone around him.
> 
> I love these two, they're literally two sides of the same coin. I'm not too confident in my ability to capture their voices just yet, but I had fun writing this anyway. Hope you enjoyed reading!


End file.
